Initially introduced to connect two points across the ocean, submarine cable networks became more flexible with the introduction of optical add-drop multiplexers (OADM). OADMs used in optical communication networks are capable of removing wavelength channels from multiple wavelength signals and adding channels to those signals. Conventional OADMs have typically been limited to use in a relatively few nodes within a network, because of their inherent performance characteristics. In other words, as the number of conventional OADMs increases within the network, the limitations associated with conventional OADMs substantially affects network performance. Moreover, conventional fixed OADMs have two limitations (i) loss of spectrum due to a guard band that needs to be allocated between bands and (ii) add/drop ratio has to be determined at the time of system deployment and that stays fixed for the life of the submarine cable (˜25-30 years) as it is not practical to extract the OADM from the submerge location on the ocean floor and change the add/drop ratio.